Remotes – yet again

[Anonymous]

Hi John,

I put all my remotes button side down. This is (was) just to keep ’em clean, but it must stop 99% of the s#&$ getting in.

Having skipped through your link, it seems to be to a different R.C, as mine dosn’t have any grey parts.

As in the OP, one of them has buttons missing,,,, well, not ‘missing’, but on the desk. I was wondering about gluing them in, but this would mean they were in contact all the time, unless – by magic – they just stick to one edge — no, not likely.

The missing ones are Red >1 >4 >7 >F. I’m just wondering if other people have the same buttons missing – maybe a design fault.

thanks to you all – hope you are keeping well.

[Anonymous]

furkin

What happens is you hold the remote unit in your hand and this warms up the air inside it which expands and gets forced out. When you put it down the warm air inside cools and contracts and draws in any grease, sweat, food, skin cells or whatever muck is on the remote control. Do this thousands of times and you accumulate a greasy black sludge inside the unit which coats the key contacts and stops them working.

In fact, as you can see from my post, I initially wondered if this greasy black sludge was actually electrically conductive grease put there to make sure it worked! It isn’t – it’s muck which needs to be cleaned out.

When you take it apart there is a rubber sheet which extends along the entire length. All the “keys” are moulded into this sheet and it is the rubber sheet touching the PCB which makes the contact and closes the circuit on the PCB. Some keys (eg HOME, arrow keys etc) have plastic covers for your fingers but it is still the rubber sheet which makes contact.

Fairy Liquid works well – I dunk the entire rubber sheet in a bowl of warm soapy water and scrub it clean. I clean the PCB with methylated spirits or surgical spirit – isopropyl alcohol is best but I don’t have any.

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